Red footed tortoises are quite intelligent, have great memory skills, and quickly learn when and where food is available, or where shelter and basking is found. They have a strong sense of smell, and their sense of touch is excellent even to the slightest contact.
Red Footed tortoises do well in community settings. With some extra care, hatchlings strive with other tortoises. They require high humidity environments which mimic their natural temperature in the rainforest.
Red Footed tortoises do well in community settings. With some extra care, hatchlings strive with other tortoises. They require high humidity environments which mimic their natural temperature in the rainforest.
HEAD BOBBING
All turtles breathe by moving their throat pouch up and down, because they do not have a flexible rib cage or a diaphragm. By pumping their throat, or buccal pouch, they are forcing air in and out of their lungs, the way our diaphragm does. Turtles also pump their arms or legs for the same reason: to move air, since their rib cage has evolved into a fixed shell. Some turtles, like box turtles and hingeback tortoises, do have a movable shell, and you can watch it move when they breathe, kind of like our rib cage. But they can still use buccal- and limb-pumping to breathe as well.
Actually, you see buccal pumping in most amphibians, reptiles, and birds. Most frogs and salamanders use it to breathe, as do lizards. Even birds pump their throat pouch to cool off, rather like panting in a dog.
The only reason buccal pumping looks funny in turtles, is that they rest their chin on their lower shell (plastron), so when the throat pouch expands and contracts, it makes the head bob up and down, and it makes the turtle look like it has the hiccups. But it doesn't. It's completely normal.
All turtles breathe by moving their throat pouch up and down, because they do not have a flexible rib cage or a diaphragm. By pumping their throat, or buccal pouch, they are forcing air in and out of their lungs, the way our diaphragm does. Turtles also pump their arms or legs for the same reason: to move air, since their rib cage has evolved into a fixed shell. Some turtles, like box turtles and hingeback tortoises, do have a movable shell, and you can watch it move when they breathe, kind of like our rib cage. But they can still use buccal- and limb-pumping to breathe as well.
Actually, you see buccal pumping in most amphibians, reptiles, and birds. Most frogs and salamanders use it to breathe, as do lizards. Even birds pump their throat pouch to cool off, rather like panting in a dog.
The only reason buccal pumping looks funny in turtles, is that they rest their chin on their lower shell (plastron), so when the throat pouch expands and contracts, it makes the head bob up and down, and it makes the turtle look like it has the hiccups. But it doesn't. It's completely normal.
YOUNG RED FOOTS
In the wild Redfoot Tortoises are forest dwellers and until they reach 6 inches in size they hide in the forest floor and spend very little time in open areas. At 6 inches they’ve outgrown all but one of their major predators – the Jaguar.
In captivity, until they reach 3 inches or so, you’re not going to have a very interactive tortoise. Until they reach 3-4 inches they have a very strong need for safety and safety to them means hiding under leaves or any material that completely covers them.
We have found that changing the enclosure decorations during cleaning stimulates their brains making them more active. In addition we interact with them daily so they are not timid to human interaction but actually quite welcoming to it. These are social tortoises so what effort you put in, you will get back in affection.
In the wild Redfoot Tortoises are forest dwellers and until they reach 6 inches in size they hide in the forest floor and spend very little time in open areas. At 6 inches they’ve outgrown all but one of their major predators – the Jaguar.
In captivity, until they reach 3 inches or so, you’re not going to have a very interactive tortoise. Until they reach 3-4 inches they have a very strong need for safety and safety to them means hiding under leaves or any material that completely covers them.
We have found that changing the enclosure decorations during cleaning stimulates their brains making them more active. In addition we interact with them daily so they are not timid to human interaction but actually quite welcoming to it. These are social tortoises so what effort you put in, you will get back in affection.
INTELLIGENCE
The article below is to an article that gives examples of Redfoot Tortoise intelligence and presents a perfect example of why it’s important to have large, well planted indoor and outdoor enclosures for your tortoise and have it designed to not look like the pen of a Russian or Greek.
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For evidence of reptilian intelligence, one need look no further than the maze, a time-honored laboratory test. Anna Wilkinson, a comparative psychologist at the University of Lincoln in England,tested a female red-footed tortoise named Moses in the radial arm maze, which has eight spokes radiating out from a central platform. Moses’ task was to “solve” the maze as efficiently as possible: to snatch a piece of strawberry from the end of each arm without returning to one she had already visited.
“That requires quite a memory load because you have to remember where you’ve been,” Dr. Wilkinson said.
Moses managed admirably, performing significantly better than if she had been choosing arms at random. Further investigation revealed that she was not using smell to find the treats. Instead, she seemed to be using external landmarks to navigate, just as mammals do.
Things became even more interesting when Dr. Wilkinson hung a black curtain around the maze, depriving Moses of the rich environmental cues that had surrounded her. The tortoise adopted a new navigational strategy, exploring the maze systematically by entering whatever arm was directly adjacent to the one she had just left. This approach is “an enormously great” way of solving the task, Dr. Wilkinson said, and a strategy rarely seen in mammals….
All tortoises possess a highly developed localized intelligence and problem solving capability which helps them survive in their respective natural environments.
Redfoot’s spend the bulk of their lifetime in dense tropical rainforests which present all kinds of difficulty in getting around and finding food. Without this problem solving capability and their highly developed sense of smell surviving in this type of environment would be next to impossible.
All of this is why you must provide your Redfoot tortoise with large and well planted indoor and outdoor enclosures where they can utilize these skills to forage for food and get enough exercise.
Tortoises are not a pet you can stick in a glass aquarium on a substrate of old newspaper feed commercial food look at them a couple of times a day and expect them to survive, let alone thrive.
They need a stimulating environment in order to act as their DNA has wired them to and it’s up to you to either do the research to determine whether you can provide the type of environment they need to survive and thrive.
The article below is to an article that gives examples of Redfoot Tortoise intelligence and presents a perfect example of why it’s important to have large, well planted indoor and outdoor enclosures for your tortoise and have it designed to not look like the pen of a Russian or Greek.
—————--
For evidence of reptilian intelligence, one need look no further than the maze, a time-honored laboratory test. Anna Wilkinson, a comparative psychologist at the University of Lincoln in England,tested a female red-footed tortoise named Moses in the radial arm maze, which has eight spokes radiating out from a central platform. Moses’ task was to “solve” the maze as efficiently as possible: to snatch a piece of strawberry from the end of each arm without returning to one she had already visited.
“That requires quite a memory load because you have to remember where you’ve been,” Dr. Wilkinson said.
Moses managed admirably, performing significantly better than if she had been choosing arms at random. Further investigation revealed that she was not using smell to find the treats. Instead, she seemed to be using external landmarks to navigate, just as mammals do.
Things became even more interesting when Dr. Wilkinson hung a black curtain around the maze, depriving Moses of the rich environmental cues that had surrounded her. The tortoise adopted a new navigational strategy, exploring the maze systematically by entering whatever arm was directly adjacent to the one she had just left. This approach is “an enormously great” way of solving the task, Dr. Wilkinson said, and a strategy rarely seen in mammals….
All tortoises possess a highly developed localized intelligence and problem solving capability which helps them survive in their respective natural environments.
Redfoot’s spend the bulk of their lifetime in dense tropical rainforests which present all kinds of difficulty in getting around and finding food. Without this problem solving capability and their highly developed sense of smell surviving in this type of environment would be next to impossible.
All of this is why you must provide your Redfoot tortoise with large and well planted indoor and outdoor enclosures where they can utilize these skills to forage for food and get enough exercise.
Tortoises are not a pet you can stick in a glass aquarium on a substrate of old newspaper feed commercial food look at them a couple of times a day and expect them to survive, let alone thrive.
They need a stimulating environment in order to act as their DNA has wired them to and it’s up to you to either do the research to determine whether you can provide the type of environment they need to survive and thrive.